scholarly journals The potentials of heresthetic and rhetoric in an open framing situation: theory and evidence from a survey experiment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
András Körösényi ◽  
Veronika Patkós ◽  
Bendegúz Plesz ◽  
Pál Susánszky
Keyword(s):  
Strong Impact ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Situation Theory ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Original Frame

Abstract To win a policy debate, political actors may apply two analytically distinct counterframing strategies, rhetoric and heresthetic. Rhetoric is when counterarguments are formulated in the original dimension of the debate, while heresthetic is using arguments in a different dimension compared to the original frame. Although both rhetoric and heresthetic are ubiquitous phenomena in the process of public opinion formation, there are no general rules to specify their efficacy. Drawing on a survey experiment carried out in Hungary in 2020 (N = 2000), this paper uncovers the factors determining the effect of the two strategies. Introducing a conceptual distinction between open and trade-off framing situations, the paper demonstrates that the structure of the situation matters. While heresthetic has a robust effect in trade-off framing situations, rhetoric may have a strong impact in open framing situations. Moreover, the effectiveness of counterframing depends on the party affiliation of respondents and the strength of their related attitudes.

scholarly journals Optimal Persuasion under Confirmation Bias: Theory and Evidence From a Registered Report

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Love Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Learning ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Learning Model ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Policy Proposals

Abstract Political actors face a trade-off when they try to influence the beliefs of voters about the effects of policy proposals. They want to sway voters maximally, yet voters may discount predictions that are inconsistent with what they already hold to be true. Should political actors moderate or exaggerate their predictions to maximize persuasion? I extend the Bayesian learning model to account for confirmation bias and show that only under strong confirmation bias are predictions far from the priors of voters self-defeating. I use a preregistered survey experiment to determine whether and how voters discount predictions conditional on the distance between their prior beliefs and the predictions. I find that voters assess predictions far from their prior beliefs as less credible and, consequently, update less. The paper has important implications for strategic communication by showing theoretically and empirically that the prior beliefs of voters constrain political actors.

scholarly journals Partisan Disagreements Arising from Rationalization of Common Information

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin E. Lauderdale
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Experimental Demonstration ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Common Information ◽  
Political World

Why do opposing partisans sometimes disagree about the facts and processes that are relevant to understanding political issues? One explanation is that citizens may have a psychological tendency toward adopting beliefs about the political world that rationalize their partisan preferences. Previous quantitative evidence for rationalization playing a role in explaining partisan factual disagreement has come from cross-sectional covariation and from correction experiments. In this paper, I argue that these rationalizations can occur as side effects when citizens change their attitudes in response to partisan cues and substantively relevant facts about a political issue. Following this logic, I motivate and report the results of a survey experiment that provides US Republicans and Democrats with information that they will be inclined to rationalize in different ways, because they have different beliefs about which political actors they should agree with. The results are a novel experimental demonstration that partisan disagreements about the political world can arise from rationalization.

Partisan Affiliation and the Evaluation of Non-Prototypical Candidates

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-147
Author(s):  
Alexander W. Severson
Keyword(s):  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Consistent Relationship ◽  
Candidate Support ◽  
Nationally Representative

AbstractIdeologically impure candidates—RINOs and DINOs—risk losing the endorsement of their fellow copartisans. However, which copartisans? In this article, I assess how party affiliation and the strength of partisan affiliation condition the evaluation of ideologically impure, non-prototypical candidates. Using a nationally representative survey experiment, I present evidence that while partisans negatively evaluate non-prototypical copartisans, there is not a consistent relationship between strength of identification and the degree of punitiveness. Moreover, candidate non-prototypicality causes convergence in candidate support between Republicans and Democrats. My results provide evidence that nominal partisan affiliation is by itself insufficient to save an ideologically non-prototypical candidate from the rebuke of fellow copartisans and thus that the “in-name-only” charge holds some weight.

Partisan Alignment, Performance, and Citizen Approval of Political Actors

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1345-1357
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Lyons ◽  
Susan M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Performance Information ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
Chief Executives ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Broad Policy ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Insight Into

There is substantial evidence that citizen assessments of political actors and associated institutions are shaped by shared partisanship. However, much of this evidence comes from citizen evaluations of political actors who are policy generalists—officials elected with broad policy jurisdictions (e.g., chief executives and legislators). We suggest that citizen assessments of policy specialists—officials elected with relatively narrow policy jurisdictions (e.g., labor commissioners and education secretaries)—may be shaped to a lesser degree by shared partisan leanings than evaluations of policy generalists. Using a survey experiment, we find evidence that, among out-partisans, favorable performance information has a greater positive effect for specialists than generalists, highlighting one way in which shared partisanship may be less influential for evaluations of specialists. These results may help to provide insight into the diversity of partisanship we see across policy generalists and specialists within the same governments and have potential implications for accountability.

When and why do ideas matter? The influence of framing on opinion formation and policy change

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olli E. Kangas ◽  
Mikko Niemelä ◽  
Sampo Varjonen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Opinion Formation ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Popular Opinion ◽  
Power Resource ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Specific Policy

A growing field of discursive institutionalism has argued for the importance of ideas and discourse in policy changes. The aim of the study is to analyse framing effects empirically by examining how, and to what extent, competing frames can shape public opinion on the implementation of a specific policy change. The case study focuses on the administration of social assistance in Finland. Results indicate that the framing of ideas shapes public opinion. Analyses show that some types of frames are more effective than others. To be successful, a politician must simplify the issue and appeal to moral sentiments rather than present too many difficult ‘factual’ viewpoints. Our study also emphasizes that even frames that succeed in shaping popular opinion may fail if powerful political actors oppose reform. Therefore, we argue that the interplay between the ‘old’ power resource approach and the ‘new’ ideational approach should be taken into account when explaining institutional changes.

TRADE-OFF BASED NEGOTIATION OF TRAFFIC CONDITIONING AND SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS IN DIFFSERV NETWORKS

2005 ◽  
Vol 06 (03) ◽  
pp. 179-192
Author(s):  
MARCO COMUZZI ◽  
CHIARA FRANCALANCI ◽  
PAOLO GIACOMAZZI
Keyword(s):  
Service Level Agreement ◽  
Service Level ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Negotiation Model ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Mathematical Formalization ◽  
Traffic Conditioning ◽  
Negotiation Problem

The paper faces the problem of the runtime negotiation on the Traffic Conditioning Agreement and Service Level Agreement in IP Differentiated Services networks. A first contribution of the paper with respect to previous literature is to propose a multi-attribute description of QoS targets and traffic profile. A second contribution of this work is to provide a mathematical formalization of the negotiation problem suitable for automated negotiation. The model is tested through simulation to a) verify the convergence of the negotiation process, which is critical to ensure that negotiation can be performed automatically and b) analyze the agreement solutions that are reached by negotiation parties for different values of quality of service and price parameters. With this paper's negotiation model, the primary goal of negotiating parties is to maintain the value of their utility function constant by searching a trade-off between QoS and price. However, the willingness to cooperate of the negotiating parties has a strong impact on the agreement value of negotiation parameters.

scholarly journals Camouflaged propaganda: A survey experiment on political native advertising

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316802093525
Author(s):  
Yaoyao Dai ◽  
Luwei Luqiu
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Advertisements ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
News Outlet

We examine a new form of propaganda, political native advertising, in which political actors, including foreign governments, buy space in independent media outlets to publish advertisements that are camouflaged as standard news stories. Those who engage in this form of propaganda hope to exploit the higher credibility of the hosting media site to enhance the persuasiveness of their message. Despite the obvious political implications and ethical issues at stake, political native advertising has received almost no scholarly attention. Our article begins to redress this imbalance. Using an online survey experiment with real political native advertisements in the Washington Post and The Telegraph bought by the Chinese government, we provide some of the first empirical evidence on basic but important features of political native advertising. We find, among other things, that respondents struggle to distinguish political advertisements from standard news stories regardless of their level of education and media literacy, that political advertisements are more convincing if they appear on and are perceived as news from an independent hosting media site than in a government-controlled news outlet, and that trust in the hosting media site declines if the political advertisement is detected.

scholarly journals Keeping the euro at any cost? Explaining attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off in Greece

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-405
Author(s):  
Ignacio Jurado ◽  
Stefanie Walter ◽  
Nikitas Konstantinidis ◽  
Elias Dinas
Keyword(s):  
Strong Support ◽  
Economic Recession ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
The Public ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Theoretical Mechanism ◽  
The Common ◽  
Original Survey

Despite years of crisis, the euro has enjoyed strong popular support across the Eurozone periphery. In light of the high costs of internal devaluation strategies, this begs the question why the public has remained in favor of the common currency. In this article, we propose a theoretical mechanism that accounts for both voters’ pocketbook preferences and their sociotropic assessments over the noisy trade-offs associated with the outcomes of euro membership and euro exit. Using original survey data from three consecutive survey waves in Greece (conducted in July, September, and December 2015, respectively), we analyze the attitudes of Greek voters toward the euro in an environment of acute uncertainty, austerity, high unemployment, and economic recession. First, we juxtapose our uncertainty mechanism of popular euro attitudes against other explanations put forward in the literature and find strong support for our argument. Second, we conduct a survey experiment to tap into attitudes toward the euro-austerity trade-off and find that as uncertainty over policy outcomes diminishes, framing effects abate in significance, especially among those who voted No in the July 2015 referendum. Finally, we derive distinct sets of euro preferences for different ‘vulnerability profiles’. Over time, as the trade-offs of euro membership become more pronounced, we find a marked fall in euro support between July and December 2015.

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